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Everybody loves a good road trip, especially when the car, the destination, and/or the journey are exotic. Well, after cruising Europe in some cool American cars, and plying the American byways in rare foreign cars, it was high time we staged an all-American adventure. The choice of a car was obvious — the baddest, most powerful, most uniquely Yankee vehicle built on these shores: Ford‘s 2013 Shelby GT500. Stuffed with the world’s most powerful V-8 engine and decked out with racing stripes, splitters, and spoilers, it is mechanized manifest destiny with programmable launch control.

As for a route, it seemed fitting to set our 662 ponies galloping along an ancient American Indian footpath-turned-horse-trail that eventually became the nation’s first officially designated scenic tourist route — Massachusetts Highway 2, aka the Mohawk Trail. And because it’s peak leaf-peeping season in New England, we opt for a ragtop to fully enjoy Mother Nature’s fall fashion show.

This trail frequently served as a warpath. The Mohawks earned themselves naming rights by using it to conquer the Pocumtuck. Metacomet — war chief of the Wampanoag tribe — used it to wage one of the first big wars against the settlers in these parts, and eventually a brash, young colonial patriot hungry for military glory followed this trail on his way to conquer the British fort Ticonderoga. That gung-ho patriot was none other than Benedict Arnold, and we aim to retrace his footsteps en route to America’s first victory in the Revolutionary War. In so doing, maybe we’ll rehabilitate Arnold’s reputation just a bit.

Day 1

Before we hit the trail, the Epic Drives team detours north out of Boston to Lowell, Massachusetts to pay tribute to the patron saint of all road trips — Jean-Louis “Jack” Kerouac. His autobiographical novel “On the Road” was a lightly fictionalized account of his own Bohemian wanderings crisscrossing America by car in the late 1940s. The book gave voice to the Beat Generation and profoundly influenced American popular culture, inspiring such musicians as the Doors, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith. The “Route 66” TV show was an unauthorized rip-off of the book’s characters and themes.

Touring this slowly gentrifying but once hardscrabble textile mill town establishes a context for the life of the man known by his alcoholic French-Canadian parents as Ti-Jean. The duplex apartment in the Centralville slum where he was born (with the assistance of a traveling doctor) was just the first of 20 places Jack called home during his first 20 years. No wonder he was a restless adult.

We attempt to grab lunch at Ricardo’s restaurant, formerly a Kerouac watering hole called Nick’s Bar, but it’s a dinner-only joint these days. We instead hit a sandwich shop and head across town to the Edson cemetery to pay our respects. Kerouac’s modest grave marker is littered with notes from fans who’ve traveled from as far away as New Zealand to toast his memory and leave empty jug bottles of cheap wine — Kerouac’s reported opiate of choice in later years. Chronic abuse of such rotgut led to his untimely death at age 47. At the liquor store across the street we procure a bottle of MD 20/20 (grape flavor) to toast the Kurt Cobain of his era upon settling into our inn later that evening. Giving it a swirl, a sniff, and a swig, we note mile-long legs, regret on the nose, and bitter disappointment on the finish.

Day 2

Today we pick up the trail of 34-year-old Benedict Arnold V, in Orange, about 75 miles west of downtown Boston. If you were schooled in the U.S., you remember Benedict Arnold as a traitor. That association is so ingrained in our culture that when LeBron James forsook the Cleveland Cavaliers, his memorabilia was discounted to $17.41 — the year of Arnold’s birth. But prior to his ill-fated change of allegiance, Arnold contributed mightily to the Revolutionary War effort. In early May 1775, immediately after the “shot heard ’round the world” at Lexington and Concord, the recently commissioned colonel eagerly joined the fight against the British. The King’s recent taxes and anti-trade laws had severely curtailed Arnold’s trade business with the West Indies. He marched a troop of men toward the action in Boston, where he learned that the city badly needed cannons. Arnold proposed procuring them from a lightly defended and disused British fort on Lake Champlain and was dispatched up the Mohawk Trail in that direction, on the double.

Double-time is our Shelby’s natural gait. Its engine is related to that of Ford’s recent GT supercar, and it combines big displacement (5.8 liters), four-valve breathing, and 14 psi of Eaton supercharger boost to crank out an epic 662 hp at 6500 rpm and 631 lb-ft of torque at 4000 rpm. The supercharger’s intercooler gets its own 5.4-quart cooling system, and the connecting rods are described as “forged I-beams,” so you know this engine means business.

After too much dawdling for photos, I can’t resist defeating AdvanceTrac and indulging in a childish display of wonton wheelspin and tire smoke. (Ford’s programmable launch-control system can assist adult drivers in feathering the clutch engagement for max acceleration from whatever launch speed best suits the surface conditions.) Arnold would surely have approved, as he grew up a troubled child and a hotheaded young adult prone to frequent dueling.

Soon we cross French King Bridge on our way to Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters, which our innkeepers commended as having the best baked goods in the region. In an effort to channel Kerouac on this trip I set a goal of ordering apple pie and ice cream at every stop, because his “On the Road” alter ego Sal Paradise subsisted almost exclusively on this staple for the first days of his inaugural cross-country hitchhiking trip. Shelburne’s pie is spectacular — golden egg-brushed crust, crisp apples in filling that stays together — but ice cream is not offered.

Our next stop is the 900-pound bronze “Hail to the Sunrise” statue of an American Indian raising his arms to the Great Spirit. It honors five tribal nations, and it’s located just outside Mohawk Trail State Park, where a stretch of the original, millennia-old footpath still exists. Park rangers point us to the trailhead, but with fairly uniform coverage of recently fallen leaves we miss a turn and find ourselves wandering in the forest. Soon a sizable branch falls from quite high in a nearby tree, photographer Vance trips and destroys a lens, and we discover a mouse with its head bitten off. Have we offended the Great Spirit? Three omens — we’re out.

Our super ‘Stang barely breaks a sweat scampering up to the Hoosac Mountain summit at 2272 feet, but the road presented quite a challenge to the Mustang’s Model T forebears when it first opened in 1914. The challenge of the climb and the dramatic four-state view from the summit has been drawing tourists ever since. Up here the leaves have mostly fallen, but within minutes we’re descending through the Trail’s famous “hairpin turn” and the color returns. The Golden Eagle restaurant presents a spectacular view of the hairpin, the Berkshires, and the town of North Adams. Lunch is capped off by Dutch apple pie a la mode that is falling apart by the time it reaches the table. The quality of the French Vanilla ice cream eclipses that of the mushy pie filling. It will also surpass that of the Freight Yard Pub’s pie at dinner that night in North Adams. Billed as “house baked,” their pie tastes as if it may have arrived in the house frozen. Sadly (or perhaps fortunately) this proves to be the trip’s last menu offering apple pie, so Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters earns our “best apple pie on the Mohawk Trail” honors.

Day 3

At this point in his journey Arnold learned that fellow Connecticut native Ethan Allen was spearheading a separate assault on Fort Ticonderoga with the help of the notorious Green Mountain Boys, a ragtag militia of sorts from present-day Vermont. Concerned that Allen might reap the glory Arnold felt was rightfully his, he postponed efforts to raise his own army and skedaddled north up what is now Highway 7, accompanied only by his personal butler. He caught up with Allen’s contingent at Castleton and announced that he’d be taking over, citing his Massachusetts commission. The Boys were having none of it. Allen was their man, so Arnold was forced to content himself with an uneasy co-leadership role.

Before we follow Ben north, the pristine twisty pavement looping up Massachusetts’ highest peak (3491 feet) through Mt. Greylock State reservation beckons. Cool morning temperatures greatly reduce the grip of our Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperCar G:2 summer tires, as do the damp leaves covering some corners. As a result, the low posted speed limit coincides with the prudent maximum velocity. This brute demands respect on anything but a hot, dry track. Sudden, abrupt inputs to any of the controls can bring disastrous results — especially if one foolishly defeats AdvanceTrac. Our experience with multiple GT500s suggests that the tires need to be good and hot to achieve their impressive 1.00g grip, but the brakes will only deliver their peak performance (102 feet from 60 mph) when cool. After a stop at the impressive 92-foot-tall War Veteran’s Memorial Tower (coincidentally a stop on the Appalachian Trail), we wind our way back down into Williamston, turning north on Highway 7.

We deviate from Arnold’s route to jog west into Whitehall, New York, making a stop at Rathbun’s Maple Sugar House. After a tour and a taste of the amber ambrosia we take the opportunity to film a few more long-overdue big-smoky burnouts on the very private stretch of road out front. This car just has burnouts in it, and they need to be let out — like popping a zit or lancing a boil — the car and driver just feel so satisfied afterwards.

Whitehall proclaims itself the birthplace of the U.S. Navy, founded by our pal Arnold a year and a half after his Ticonderoga raid. Predicting that the British would use Lake Champlain to invade and divide the colonies, he oversaw the construction of a fleet of wooden ships nearby. Our nascent navy’s first great battle occurred on October 11, 1776 at Valcour Island. Most ships were sunk, and Arnold’s navy was defeated, but it inflicted sufficient damage to send the Brits back north for the winter, buying the colonists invaluable time to regroup.

Day 4

We finally reach Fort Ticonderoga on the last open day of a season during which the fort has been highlighting the events of 1775. The guides are dressed in the non-uniform period colonial “uniforms,” firing period flintlocks, and are happy to recount the lore of the Allen/Arnold raid. News of the colonial uprising, sent from Boston by ship via the St. Lawrence Seaway, had yet to reach Ticonderoga by May 10, 1775. Sensing this, Arnold and Allen ferried 80 men by rowboat over to the New York shore under cover of darkness and thunderstorms and attacked at 4 a.m. Wet gunpowder meant the lone night watchman never got off a shot and the fort was easily taken without any bloodshed. The colonists had their first victory in the war, and the spoils helped level the playing field for the colonists.

From Ticonderoga we blast south toward the scene of what may have been Arnold’s most important contribution to the revolution — Saratoga. I feel some melancholy during what could be my last stint at the wheel of a new old-school Mustang. Its replacement is waiting in the wings — lighter, more agile, with an independent rear suspension and (we hear) a fresh, non-retro design ethic. It’s a sure bet that car will never get 662 factory horsepower. It won’t need that kind of firepower to outrun this one, and it’ll handle bumpy corners better without all that rigid iron bouncing around in back, but burnouts won’t be the same with the tires cambering in under acceleration squat and with far less torque at play.

By October of 1777, Arnold’s reputation as a brilliant military tactician with horrible people skills was well-established. He was an irritable hothead who made a lot of enemies, and here in Saratoga he clashed with the officer in charge, General Horatio Gates. Gates sidelined him, but as the battle against British general Burgoyne heated up, Arnold defied orders, mounted his horse, and charged out onto the battlefield, riding around like a madman urging the troops on. He was shot through the leg and badly injured, but the colonists prevailed and that victory helped convince the French to help us win the war.

Had Arnold died from that wound, we’d probably still be naming ships and military academies after him, but he didn’t, and a monument to his bravery in Saratoga National Historical Park doesn’t even mention him by name. That’s because, as we all know, the eternally disgruntled Arnold became disillusioned and, feeling badly wronged by Congress and his military colleagues, defected to the British in 1780. Years later, his combination of military cunning and utter lack of social tact benefited the American cause yet again, when British General Cornwallis ignored the irascible Arnold’s sage advice to establish an inland base of operations. Scholars now believe such a base might have prevented Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown, which ended the war. Thanks, Ben!

As we reach the end of this autumnal all-American Epic Drive in the season of Thanksgiving, remember to give thanks for the many contributions Benedict Arnold made toward securing our independence. He helped lay the foundation for a United States of America in which a child of immigrants like Jack Kerouac could become a literary and cultural revolutionary; where a chicken farmer like Carroll Shelby could give fangs to a parts-bin compact car; and where that car could evolve into a 662-hp/631-lb-ft convertible that anyone with $60 grand can purchase in pursuit of the happiness that comes from laying long black stripes on any road in the land when nobody’s looking. God bless America!